Rodarte / Spring 2012 RTW

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Last season Kate and Laura Mulleavy were inspired by the sun-kissed Great American plains and the world evoked by the movie Days of Heaven. This season they are staying en plein air—this time in the sunflower-filled Provençal fields of Vincent van Gogh’s unbridled imagination.

Those sunflowers appear woven into elaborate Lyons brocades of the type favored by the great mid-century couturiers such as Pierre Balmain and Christian Dior, although the Mulleavys seem to have washed and treated them to deflate some of that sumptuousness. Those optimistic, life-affirming blooms also appear in delicate silk-floss embroideries, scattered over fragile tulle ruffles.

There is more mid- and late-century couture influence in some of the gala shapes: swathed fichu necklines and bodices erupting into buoyant skirts, for instance, and even a Reine Margot bodice or two that seems plucked from the Christian Lacroix archive. But the fertile and poetic Mulleavy imagination grafts these touches onto modernistic effects. Mediterranean skies are lit by a full moon, and a brilliant Milky Way is evoked in gleaming metallic brocades, crystals nestling in the folds of knits, and clunky heeled sandals in reflective-mirror silver. Meanwhile, ruched glove leather, and exaggerated layered peplums and winged sleeves suggest the princess in a Flash Gordon story.

The Mulleavys seemed to have all bases covered, from the ethereal to the rock star, which will serve their fan base, represented at their show by an eclectic best-dressed celebrity front row that included Taylor Swift, the enchanting Fanning sisters (all in soft ivory lace and tulle layers), Rooney Mara in a black Goth ensemble, Saoirse Ronan in a printed peplum number, and Beyoncé Knowles in a tea-stain tulle puffball.